


PUSH

by tree_and_leaf



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Anglo-Catholicism, Gen, Moral Dilemmas, Post-Canon, Religion, culture clash, evangelicals, religious angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-25
Updated: 2010-01-25
Packaged: 2017-10-06 16:31:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/55647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tree_and_leaf/pseuds/tree_and_leaf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amy thinks magic is evil.  So the Hogwarts letter is a bit of a nasty surprise...  A story about faith, doubts, and growing pains.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. PUSH

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the LJ community Omniocular's Totally Not Badfic Challenge, and inspired by the fics you occasionally run into (usually on FF.net) where an Evangelical goes to Hogwarts and attempts to persuade everyone to snap their wands in two and turn to Jesus. While there's not much explicit religion in Potter canon, the background references (Harry has a godfather, hospitals are named for saints, we know you can be a wizard and a monk, quotations from the Bible on graves, etc...) suggest that wizarding Britain is comparable to Muggle Britain - not very devout, but with a good deal of cultural Christianity in the background, and some observant people.
> 
> This fic contains Catholic! Weasleys (there must be some reason Percy's middle name is Ignatius), and a certain amount of satire of various kinds of Christianity.

Amy Smith used to try to believe that the weird stuff that happened round her was just her imagination. After all, it couldn't really be anything else, could it? There was probably a reasonable explanation for why she could hear a hundred times better than any of her friends, especially when people were talking about her – and the rest was just so silly. She couldn't possibly have made Mike's hair fall out when he tried to beat her up, and he said the next day at school he'd decided to get a skinhead because it looked well hard. And she must have imagined the time the cat vanished and turned up again on the other side of town just as it was about to pounce on her hamster. Probably it was just scared of hamsters, or something, and had run away very quickly. If it had happened, that would have been – well, something scary that she didn't want to think about. She'd never liked things that didn't make sense. She wasn't sure how she was supposed to act, and she felt all hot and awkward. Though she always felt like the odd one out at school anyway. All she really wanted was to feel she belonged somewhere.

That was why she liked the Scripture Union group at her new school, the big school, so much, even though her parents didn't seem all that keen on it. Terry, who led the group, was so nice and friendly, and made everything seem so clear and straightforward, and the other kids were nice, although they mostly didn't have much in common other than God and not fitting in.

All she really wanted was to know where she belonged. Looking back, she probably should have been more careful about what she asked for.

***

It was a bit of a shock when the old woman turned up at the front door and insisted she was a witch and had to learn to magic. It was even more of a shock when her parents looked at each other, nodded significantly – and her Dad muttered "So Uncle Bill wasn't senile after all" – then said "She'll go."

She tried everything, from weeping to begging to praying – to God, obviously, not to her mum and dad – but her parents were adamant. Even the fact that the witch had said that she'd missed the first year of her education, because there'd been some sort of a _war_ didn't put them off. "I suppose it makes sense" her mum had said, "there's always been something a bit… different about her… Oh, don't look so pole-axed, Amy, you'll get used to it; it's only realising what you are." Eventually, she'd screwed a promise out of them that if she didn't like it after a year, she wouldn't have to go back, though she suspected that her parents were hoping they'd never have to keep their promise. She'd see to it that they did, though.

Only a year was an awfully long time.

In desperation, she turned to Terry.

"What should you do if your Dad makes you do something you don't want to?" she asked him at the end of a meeting.

"Um… that depends what it is and why you don't want to do it" he said. "Everything all right? You're not upset about anything? Has anyone done anything to make you feel bad? Or anything to hurt you?"

"He wants me to do something that's wrong, and that I don't want to do," she said, conveniently ignoring the fact that her mother was backing him up, even though she could usually twist her round her little finger. Just cause she didn't know better than to think magic was really impressive! And cause Dad turned out to have… evil … family.

Terry was looking at her oddly. "Oh… What…" For some reason he seemed to be choosing his words very carefully. "What exactly does he want you to do?"

"He wants me to go to this school where…" she paused. The scary old witch had been very strict about her not telling anyone about magic, and Terry probably wouldn't believe her, anyway. Grown-ups could be like that. Normally she found it reassuring, but as things were, it didn't help. "Where they teach you to do bad things and not believe in God."

Terry, for some reason, looked relieved, which he definitely shouldn't have been doing, but also confused. "What? What sort of a school? What bad things?"

"This weird boarding school that some of Dad's family _apparently_ used to go to, though he's never talked about it before. It's…" she thought fast, remembering what the old witch had said, because she didn't want anyone to turn Terry into a toad, or whatever it was they did to people who found out about them, "It's sort of a special science college. "

"Oh" said Terry. "Look, I know it's tough, but you can't just ignore what your parents want you to do. Honour your father and mother, eh?"

"But –"

He held up a hand. "No, I think I know what you're going to say. Whatever anyone's said at fellowship, science isn't a threat to God. Actually, it sounds like a really great chance for you, I bet they'll have all sorts of fantastic stuff you'd never get a sniff at round here. You do science here, anyway – and quite right, too."

If only you knew, thought Amy, miserably. That was the worst of it, really; she couldn't even tell Terry the truth, or the witches would come round and – well, she didn't dare imagine what they'd do. And what could you do, anyway, as a kid, when your parents told you to go away to boarding school and learn magic? She was pretty sure that it wasn't anything Childline could deal with.

Terry was still talking: with a hopeless effort, she concentrated on what he was saying. "So: if someone tries to make you do something you think is wrong, then you shouldn't. But you ought to listen, and then decide what God's telling you to do. I think you shouldn't worry about going. Listen, test, and pray. Learning stuff doesn't hurt you, even if it's just learning how other people think. Read your Bible and pray, and you'll be all right. And if it's the boarding bit that's really worrying you… you'll be all right with that. It'll be tough at first, but everyone will be missing their mum and dad, even if they don't want to admit it. You'll soon make friends, and I bet when you come home at Christmas you'll think it's the best thing ever."

He hesitated, then rolled his sleeve up, unclipped the fabric bracelet he was wearing, and gave it to her. "Look... take that. Maybe it'll make you feel better, and remember that God's always there for you."

"Thanks, Terry," said Amy, feeling touched. PUSH, it read - Pray until something happens.

•••

But going to Hogwarts didn't look like being the best thing ever so far. Amy had sat in the corner of a compartment, hunched in misery, and trying to ignore everyone who came in. The train seemed quite empty, though, and when she merely mumbled something incoherent – she was trying not to cry – most of them went on to another compartment.

Most of the kids had – as far as she could tell – seemed quite normal; apart from the cloaks, they weren't at all what she had expected from witches. They mostly seemed to be wearing jeans or cords or tweed; the worst you could say about them was that a lot of them looked very old-fashioned, like children from one of those serials that you used to get on the BBC at Sunday teatime.

"Hey, are you all right?" A red-headed girl had poked her head round the door. "I'm Ginny Weasley– I'm a prefect, and I'm supposed to look after the younger kids, so…"

"'M fine" muttered Amy, and dragged her hand across her eyes.

"What's your name?"

"Amy. Amy Smith."

"Are you sure you're OK? Are you feeling a bit homesick? When I first came to Hogwarts, I really missed my Mum and Dad, even though I had lots of brothers at the school, so I bet it's even worse if you've no family here. Everyone feels homesick at first, you don't need to be ashamed of it."

"'Mnot homesick," said Amy defiantly. "Not really. I just don't want to go to school here."

"Why not? Hogwarts is a brilliant school."

"'Mnot a witch."

The red-haired girl stared at her. "But – of course you are. You wouldn't have got a Hogwarts letter otherwise. They don't make mistakes."

"I can't do magic" said Amy, flatly.

Ginny smiled. "Of course you can. Maybe it'll take a while before you get your first spell to work, but you'll get there in the end. And it doesn't mean you'll never be any good at magic. One of my friends got really lousy marks for most of his time at school, and thought he was rubbish, but he's turned out to be very good, once he stopped panicking. One of the bravest people I know, at that – and the kindest. Did some pretty remarkable things last year."

"You don't understand" said Amy. "I can't do magic. I _mustn't_." She added in a smaller voice "Nobody ought to. It's wicked" but she wasn't sure Ginny was listening.

"Stay here" said Ginny. "I'll go and ask someone else to come and talk to you. Oh, - and have a hanky."

Amy took it from her, and slowly unfolded it. It was a small, crisp square of a fine, light white fabric, and it smelled faintly of lavender.

Amy burst into tears.

•••

" – that's her in there" Amy dimly heard the red-headed girl saying. "She seems really unhappy, and she said she couldn't do magic, which is mad, because she wouldn't be here if she wasn't a witch. Poor kid, she's probably just worried because she's so behind for her age."

Another girl laughed. "It's a common problem at the moment, isn't it? OK, Ginny, I'll try and have a talk with her, but you're better at this sort of thing than I am…"

"Yeah, but I'm not a Muggleborn" the red-head said. The compartment doors slid back, and Amy hastily wiped her eyes with Ginny's hanky and tried to look as if she hadn't spent the last ten minutes crying. She had to be brave, after all, and trust that God would help her.

A round-faced girl with a mop of untidy brown curls pushed her head round the door. She looked, Amy thought, a bit old to be at school, more like a student, but she was wearing the same kind of cloak as the other kids. "Hello," she said, and smiled in what was probably meant to be a reassuring way. "I'm Hermione Granger, and you must be – Amy, isn't it? I'm Head Girl, so when Ginny said you seemed a bit upset, I thought I should come and see if there was anything I could do to help. If you're worried about being behind, you needn't be. You'll catch up with a bit of hard work, and there are a lot of people in a similar situation – I missed my last year because of the war, so I've ended up in a class with people who are younger than me."

"I don't want anything" said Amy. Then she thought that was rather rude. You shouldn't be rude, even to witches, she thought, so she added. "Thanks. But I'm just not a witch. I'm only going because my parents made me, and I'm only staying for a year. It's against my religion. I'm a Christian."

Hermione raised her eyebrows. "Amy, I don't know who's been talking to you, but Professor Sprout must have said it's not something you get a choice about. You _are_ a witch or wizard or you aren't, it's something inside you. It's got nothing to do with religion. I mean, I'm not really religious myself, but that's how I was brought up – by non-magic people, incidentally. But my – fiancé's family are Catholics, and I know the Headmistress goes to church every week in the village, and quite a few people go with her. We've got some Jews and Muslims and Hindus in the school, come to that. Anyway, should I put your name down for church on Sunday? What are you – C of E?"

Amy gaped a little, but rallied. "Going to church every Sunday doesn't make you a Christian."

Hermione looked startled; it obviously wasn't the answer she was expecting to hear. Then she brightened. "Well, of course I know you have to be baptised and stuff, but I can assure you that all my fiancé's family – actually, Ginny's one of them – were all baptised when they were little."

"Being baptised doesn't make you a Christian, that's just what Catholics think, and they're mostly not really Christians, my pastor says," said Amy. Hermione's eyebrows now appeared to be trying to crawl off the top of their head. "I'm sure some of them are, though", she added hastily.

"Uh huh" said Hermione, in an odd tone of voice. "So what does, and what on earth has it got to do with not doing magic?"

"Accepting Jesus Christ as your personal saviour" answered Amy promptly. "And following the Bible. And it says in the Bible that doing magic is evil, so I can't do magic."

Hermione sighed "But Amy, Muggles think magic is bad because they think it means conjuring up the devil and getting him to do things for you. That's not what we do. It's like – being very strong. It's only good or bad depending on what you do with it. It's not the sort of witchcraft the Bible's talking about."

"It's the word of God, so if it says magic is bad, then it must be bad" said Amy firmly. "I mean, _being_ a witch probably isn't a sin, because being bad-tempered isn't either. But it is if you do it. It's just a temptation I've got to live with. I don't mind if I get chucked out of Hogwarts, it wasn't my idea to come. But hopefully I'll be able to, um, witness for Christ before I do. Have _you_, um, you know, thought about asking Jesus into your life?"

Hermione stared at her. Then she said "I – ah, I should be going, I need to go and talk to the new prefects. But I hope you'll think about this, Amy, I really don't believe God would give people a gift and then punish them for using it." And before Amy could even mention the tree in the Garden of Eden, she was gone. Faintly, she heard Hermione say "- completely hopeless, can't you talk to her again, it's more your sort of thing."

"I'm a bad Catholic, I don't think that counts," said Ginny, lightly. Aha, thought Amy, she knows _something's_ wrong. Maybe she could help her accept Jesus into her life? She resolved to pray for her – and for Hermione too, though she didn't seem to like her very much…

Ginny was still talking. "Maybe we should ask Father David to come over to school and talk to her?"

"I bet she'll ask him if he's _saved_" said Hermione, in disgusted tones.

"Well, he's a good bloke, and he's kind, even when people are rude to him" said Ginny. Rude? thought Amy. What an odd way to look at it. Poor Ginny, she obviously had no idea… "He even managed to be polite to Malfoy senior when he complained about him praying for Muggleborns at that last Christmas carol service. Well, I say he was polite, but what I mean is he didn't actually tell him in so many words to go snog a Dementor or hex his balls off, and if he was dead and Catholic that alone'd be grounds for canonization, never mind the rest of it. That was just before they came and... God, how can that only have happened last year?"

"Come on." There was a noise as if Hermione had hugged the other girl. "Let's go and see the other prefects. Oh God, I bet the hat puts her in Gryffindor, we're going to be in negative points by the end of the week."

"It could be worse. Can you imagine her and Snape, poor bugger…?" the voices trailed away.

•••

Amy had to admit that part of her was really impressed by the boat-ride across the loch to the castle, high above the water. It was certainly a beautiful place, and even overhearing someone explain that "only witches and wizards can see Hogwarts – Muggles just see a ruin" didn't entirely spoil her enjoyment. Though probably the fact that it was beautiful counted as a temptation, too.

It was only when they got to the school that things got really weird, and considering that up to that point she'd seen pet toads, boats that moved of their own accord, and a man with incredibly untidy hair who looked too big to be allowed, that was saying something.

They said that they were going to be sorted into houses, and there had been all sorts of weird theories about how that would work. There were all sorts of ridiculous rumours about what they would have to do: a mousy haired boy said miserably that they had to wrestle a troll, and someone else said that they had to do a test of magic. That was OK, thought Amy. She'd just not do it, and then they'd send her home.

Except it wasn't that. They pushed them to the front of the hall, with all the other pupils sitting looking at them, and they looked at the pupils, and at a stool, on which sat a hat.

A hat. A shabby, slightly scorched looking hat that sang something alarming-sounding about peace and friendship rising from the ashes of hatred and suspicion.

And then they had to put it on their heads.

"Is that all?" muttered a boy. Amy said nothing, but she thought a hat that could look in your head was a good deal more alarming than anything they'd thought of in the boat coming across. And then she thought hopefully, perhaps it will see I don't want to be here and send me home.

Only it didn't. She sat down on the stool, and felt Professor Sprout lower the hat onto her head, and then she heard the hat, talking very quietly so that only she could hear. It was like having someone whispering in her ear.

"Hm" the voice said. "Not Slytherin, obviously, too direct. And I don't see you doing well in Ravenclaw. You might fit in Hufflepuff, that's a very strong sense of loyalty you've got there."

"I don't want to be here," thought Amy flatly. "I'm not going to do magic, it's wrong."

"Who gave you that idea?" the hat replied, sounding curious. "I haven't heard that in a long time. And what do you plan to do instead?"

"Tell them the truth. Tell them magic's not God's will."

"Nonsense," said the hat, rather impatiently. "And they won't like it, you know."

"I can't help that," thought Amy, and tried to stifle the feelings of misery and loneliness that washed over her at the idea of everyone thinking she was mad or being angry with her or trying to force her to do magic. She _ really_ couldn't help it, though.

"Well, that clarifies matters a bit," the voice said. "You're going to have a rotten time if you don't rethink your ideas, but there's no doubt that you're a – GRYFFINDOR!"

Over at the Gryffindor table, she saw Ginny put her head in her hands, and some of the children from her year who had already been sorted looked decidedly fed up.

I hate Hogwarts, thought Amy as she walked over to them. It's horrible, and evil, and I'd rather die than do magic and be like _them_.

•••

Things, predictably, did not improve once classes started. She hated getting awful marks, she hated feeling she ought to join in, she hated that the teachers kept taking house points off her because she wasn't trying – though she did do the written work, and even got reasonably good marks – and most of all, she hated that they cut her off before she could explain why she wouldn't do magic. Her classmates all thought she was weird, and they didn't listen when she tried to tell them why she didn't join in with stuff. Some of them laughed at her, and one of the boys, who said he was an Anglican, called her a stupid heretic. She wasn't sure what a heretic was, but somehow that seemed worse than the Muggleborn witch who said that Christians were evil and burnt witches and tried to make everyone do what they wanted instead of what was natural. Heretic-boy, at that point, completely lost his temper and hit the other girl with some sort of curse that made her sprout alarming big flapping things from her nose, and was just telling Amy that it was people like her that gave the church a bad name when Professor Sprout turned up and gave all three of them detention, which didn't seem fair, as Amy hadn't actually done anything. During detention – re-potting Snargaluff seedlings, which were horribly sticky – Heretic-boy, who was called Pusey, and seemed to be slightly ashamed of landing her in detention, kept trying to convince her of how much Christian stuff there was in wizarding culture. Eventually she snapped that she knew all that – which, she later realised uneasily, wasn't entirely true – but that it didn't make any difference, magic was still immoral.

"Sure" said Pusey, "they're waiting till we've got our OWLs to teach us to invoke Satan, but we're starting on human sacrifice next week – oh, for crying out loud, that was a joke, Hogwarts isn't Dark… There's nothing wrong with magic, there's heaps of wizarding saints, Dunstan and Mungo and Dominic and Christina Mirabilis, and… um, would you like to borrow my hanky? It's only a little bit sticky."

"Oh leave me alone" snarled Amy, and dragged her hand across her eyes.

Then she remembered, too late, that Sprout had told them not to let the sap get near their eyes. She spent the next day in the Hospital Wing with foul-smelling bandages over her eyes, and Madam Pomfrey coming in every now and again to tell her not to scratch and scold her for being too silly to listen.

She thought, sometimes, about running away, but that would be cowardly – and disobedient, too, she thought, after all, you had to stand the trials placed on you. And she had promised to try for a year.

Hermione Granger kept cornering her and trying to convince her that magic was a good thing. Like Pusey, she also kept coming out with even more obscure details about Christianity in the wizarding world. Not, to Amy's mind, that any of them proved anything. After all, in the middle ages people had never read their Bibles and been more interested in saints than Jesus, so they were probably capable of anything. But nothing she said seemed to change Hermione's mind, either.

Only one of the Gryffindor girls was still talking to her, but Vicky Sloane was nice, even if she changed the subject every time Amy tried to bring up God. She'd given up asking when Amy was going to give up and do magic, and although she was wizard-born, she was interested in football. Her uncle, who was a Muggle, used to take her, she said. And the classes weren't all dreadful. Herbology was actually quite good fun; History of Magic was unbelievably boring, once she had recovered from the shock at realising that the class was being taught by a ghost – she wondered if someone ought to exorcise it, but concluded that it was probably a dangerous thing to try if you didn't know what you were doing. On the other hand, you didn't have to do magic, just learn dates and things, so that was OK. Potions was all right, as well – after some thought, she had decided that it didn't seem that different, morally, from chemistry, what with there being no wand waving or spells, and she actually started to enjoy it. Of course, she'd never _use_ any of the things they made, but she liked to watch the potions brewing, and there was something comforting about the way you followed a set of sensible instructions to a clear result. The teacher – Professor Grayne – was new, and seemed strict but nice; Amy was rather baffled to hear some of the Gryffindors from a couple of years above talking about how soft and useless she was.

"They mean compared to the potions teacher before last," said Vicky, briskly packing away her potions kit. "He was headmaster last year, and then he was killed. He was really horrible – and everyone thought he was evil, only it turned out he wasn't."

"What? Evil?" said Amy. Vicky has spoken quite matter-of-factly.

"Well, everyone thought he was on You-Know-Who's side – I mean Voldemort's, we can say it now – only it turned out he was working for Dumbledore and on the right side all along, and he helped Harry Potter to destroy Voldemort, and he got killed doing so. And he did try to protect the students from the other Death Eaters."

"_Death Eaters?_" Amy squeaked. Now that did sound like black magic. Only – if other witches and wizards were against it… Of course, they seemed to genuinely believe that some magic was OK… "Vicky, what are you talking about?"

Vicky's eyes stretched wide. "The war, idiot! Harry Potter saving us from the Dark Lord – who'd have had you locked up in prison, incidentally. I don't know, Amy, maybe if you tried to find out what the wizarding world is actually like, you might not offend half the people you meet before you get two minutes into a conversation with them."

"I'm just trying to tell them the truth, and what the Bible says" said Amy crossly.

"Yeah, right. You know you do actually have to think about it, as well, right?" said Vicky, and got up to leave. "Give it a rest, Amy, you're not going to change anyone's mind, you know."

•••

Amy, because she was embarrassed, did go and read the paragraph at the end of _Recent Developments in Magical History_ on the war. It turned out that there had been a booklet about it in the orientation pack Sprout had brought her parents, but she had refused to look at it. Both booklet and _Recent Developments_ seemed to be trying to be dull and matter of fact, but whole story was most alarming, and it didn't seem to make much sense.

The worst moment, though, was when someone had, once again, tried to tell her, totally ignoring what the Bible said, that magic was OK, and once again had said that this 'Father David' would be able to tell her better. Amy was sick of the name.

"He can't be that good a Christian if he just ignores what the Bible says," said Amy, shrilly, "I don't think I _ought_ to go to that sort of church."

The other Gryffindor – this time it was a third year called Fenwick – turned pale and, most unexpectedly, slapped her.

"Fenwick! Stop it, you can't hit first years!" said one of the girl's friends, catching her arm. Amy, blinking with shock more than pain, said nothing.

"I don't care," said Fenwick, who looked almost on the verge of tears herself. "I'm not religious, but I'm not going to let a snotty little cow talk about him like that, as if she was _better_ than him. Not after last year."

But Pusey, who had been on the fringes of the crowd, came and stood beside Amy and said quietly, "It's not her fault, really. She doesn't know what happened."

"Then I suggest you tell her," snapped Fenwick. "As for you, Smith, one of these days you'll get into serious trouble making assumptions about people you've never met. Oughtn't to go to his church! Bloody hell, you're not fit to be his house-elf."

House-elf?

"Come on, Smith," said Pusey, "and listen, for once…" He took her arm and drew her, un-protesting, out of the corridor and into the courtyard.

"You know what happened last year, right?" His voice was rough, as if he was frightened and trying to hide it.

"There was a war, and Harry Potter defeated the Dark Lord. You all talk about him as he was Jesus, or something…."

Pusey glared, but seemed to decide to ignore her last comment. "Not just that. Merlin, didn't you read the stuff they sent out before term…? Or listen to Sprout? The Death-Eaters wanted to stop people who didn't have wizard parents from having magic –"

"I wouldn't mind. They could have had mine."

"Shut up and listen, will you? They thought that Muggleborns – like you – were too dirty and common to be magical. They thought you weren't really human. You can't imagine it, even if you've seen the pictures…. They killed a lot of Muggles, too. Remember that bridge collapsing? And the train accident? They weren't accidents, that was black magic. And they rounded up all the Muggleborns, and people who didn't agree with them. And they, well, sent them to camps, and took their wands away, and made them work for almost no food, and lots of them died, and it was horrible. Really, really horrible."

He paused, and swallowed. Amy was silent, feeling as if a cold hand had closed on her stomach. What sort of a world was this?

Pusey went on. "Well, they had taken over the government, and a lot of people just went along with it, because they were scared, or they didn't believe the government would really do anything evil as that and it was just rumours – they'd taken over the press, and they kept saying the people who were taken away were terrorists –, or because they wanted to have a quiet life or make more money, or… I don't know. Mostly because they were scared, I think. I hope. But some people fought back. Harry Potter, and Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger –"

"What, _that_ Hermione Granger? The Head Girl?"

"Yes," said Pusey, crossly. "How can you not know… She's wonderful, she's so brave and clever and pretty… Anyway, there were the Three, who really saved us all from V-Voldemort, and there were people like the Order of the Phoenix who fought against the Death-Eaters – and lots of them got killed – and Potterwatch, who kept a radio station going with real news , not the rubbish that was on the WWN, and then there were lots of people who didn't fight but who did what they could to help people who were in trouble. And Fr David saved a lot of Muggleborns. He helped a whole lot of kids get to a convent – a magical one – where they hid for a bit and then got out of the country. And he had a lot of people hidden for a few days in his attic who'd run away from Hogwarts or who were on the run, so they had a better chance to get away. Fenwick's big brother, for instance. Her parents are dead, the DE's killed them, but her brother got to Norway and lived, and Fr David's one of the people who helped him get away. But he got on the wrong side of Lucius Malfoy – it started with the carol service, of all things, Fr David prayed for Muggleborns – and in the end they took him away, and put him in prison, and – I guess they must have tortured him. But he came back to his parish as soon as the Healers let him, as if he'd just been on holiday or something."

Amy's cheeks burned. She forced herself to look at Pusey, and saw his face had taken on a strangely awed expression, even more so than when he had talked about Granger.

"He's a hero," he said finally. "A real, genuine hero, and even though he'd say he was just doing his duty, and lots of people did more, you mustn't be surprised if people get angry if you say he's not a good Christian. Specially Fenwick. She'd have lost all her family, if it wasn't for him. You'll be, well, you'll be doing well if you're ever half as good as he is." He gave an awkward, embarrassed laugh at sounding so sentimental. "So will I be," he added.

"He sounds… very brave. But that doesn't mean he's right about magic." said Amy, almost reluctantly. "And honestly, Pusey, the more you say about Volde-whatsit and the Death Eaters, the more you make me think none of us should be messing about with magic. It isn't right."

"But can't you _feel_ the difference? None of us chose to be magical. But you can choose if you want to be like Voldemort or not."

"But it's more important to choose if you want to follow Jesus or not. But I suppose you just think he was another kind of wizard." And there it was, she realised, her secret fear. Because with all the things magic could do, how could you know Jesus was special? Well, because the Bible told you, and the magic other people did was just a trick. But if you didn't believe the Bible, then it all fell to bits…

But Pusey was looking indignant. "I do not! For one thing, you can't beat death by magic. There's no spell in the world that can do that, not truly. That's God, that is. And he was God, is God. That's totally different to being able to do a little bit of magic."

"Well, yeah…."

They looked at each other tentatively, surprised by the sudden moment of agreement. Then he said, "The sacraments don't work like magic, either."

"Sacraments?"

Pusey looked at her narrowly. "Baptism and Communion, f'rinstance."

"Oh, that. That's just symbolic" said Amy.

"Heretic," said Pusey. "You're hopeless."

"You're rude."

"You're stupid."

"So are you."

There was a long pause. Then Amy said cautiously, "What is a house-elf, anyway?"

•••

She had a number of conversations like that with Pusey over the next couple of weeks: they tended to start amicably enough, then dissolve into arguments. She didn't know why he didn't just leave her alone, but he seemed to keep wanting to make up with her, but be unable to stay made up.

They were about half way through the term, and her teachers were getting increasingly exasperated with her – with the exception of Professors Sprout, Grayne, and of course Binns, though the latter didn't really count, as he had never once managed to get her name right, even the time she had asked if the witch burning mightn't have had something to do with the Muggles being frightened (and when, she wondered, had she started calling normal people Muggles? She had to stop doing that.) One Saturday morning at breakfast, an owl dropped a folded note on her plate, and flapped off without waiting for any tit-bits. A shame; Amy genuinely did like the owls, and thought that she'd miss them when she finally left.

Cautiously, Amy unfolded the note – she didn't know the writing.

"The Headmistress" said Pusey, peering over her shoulder. "You're for it, Smith."

"Didn't anyone ever tell you it's rude to read other people's letters, Pusey?" Amy snapped.

"Ah, but it doesn't say so in the Bible, so it must be OK, right?" said Pusey, smugly.

"Don't be an idiot!"

"And it doesn't say 'Thou shalt fail your end of year exams because you're too bloody stubborn to admit you're wrong, either, so –"

"That's not the same thing!"

"Ahem" said a voice behind them. Amy spun round and saw Hermione Granger. "Pusey, literacy is a wonderful thing, but five points from Gryffindor, and it'll be a lot more if I ever catch you snooping at other people's letters again. Haven't you got anywhere else to be? Hang on, Amy, not you, I'd like a word with you."

Great, thought Amy; another set of so-called saints and dodgy bishops... Arguing with Hermione Granger was like being hit over the head with half the library.

Though to be fair, she was a lot more interesting than Binns. On the other hand, so was mould.

•••


	2. PUSH

"Miss Smith," said Professor McGonagall, eyeing her austerely over square-rimmed glasses. Amy gulped: McGonagall looked like a respectable and rather terrifying great-aunt, with her black hair pinned up in a bun, and a white blouse with a silk tartan scarf at her throat. And yet she turned into a cat… It wasn't so much that this world was full of wickedness, thought Amy, but that none of it made any sense. Full of things that ought to be wrong, and yet didn't feel that way. Of course it was a trick, it had to be. Not that any of the people she'd met so far actually seemed evil – not even those horrid girls in her dorm, or the Slytherins, or that idiot Pusey. They were just like the kids at her old school, no better or worse. Which meant, therefore, that they all must be deluded. By Satan?

Only she didn't think she was going to win many arguments with McGonagall. Hermione had been bad enough. And come to that, she found herself boggling at the idea the Devil could get the better of either of them…

McGonagall pulled out a sheaf of parchment, eyed it dubiously, and then looked back up at her. "I have a series of notes here from your subject teachers, Miss Smith, and I find them rather worrying. Your performance, I see, is acceptable in History of Magic, and good in Potions and Herbology. Professor Grayne describes you as a pleasure to teach; Professor Sprout has some concerns about your temper, but is otherwise very positive. _However_. All the other reports are completely unacceptable. You are, I am informed, refusing to do any practical work involving wands or casting magic, though I gather your written work is of a reasonable quality. Clearly you are not incapable, so I am left to assume that this is deliberate disobedience. What I am not clear about is why, particularly as you are generally described as polite. Well?"

Amy took a deep breath, tried to meet McGonagall's cold eyes, and failed. Be brave, she thought, and half started as she remembered the Sorting Hat. Magic got into everything and spoiled it, she thought miserably. "I can't do magic," she began, and stopped.

"Nonsense," said McGonagall sharply. "You mean you won't. Clearly you can do magic; you are not a Muggle, and if you were, you wouldn't be able to make Potions – you'd just get an unsuccessful chemistry experiment."

"Potions uses magic?" said Amy, feeling wretched, "But – I didn't know – I didn't do anything."

"Of course you didn't consciously do anything. You _are_ magic. It comes out of you whether you want it to or not."

"But I don't want to be," burst out Amy. McGonagall looked at her, severely, and then pushed a biscuit tin at her. "Ginger newt?"

"I – um, thanks," said Amy, bewildered. The biscuit did, indeed, look like a newt, but thankfully it didn't move. Not like those chocolate frogs, which were the most disgusting things Amy had ever seem.

"Is anyone being unkind to you, Miss Smith? Is someone bullying you? Do you miss your mum and dad?"

"I – no, not really," Amy stuttered. She _did_ miss her parents, but she was also very angry with them for making her go to Hogwarts. And the other kids weren't really bullying her, exactly. They just didn't like her much. There was Fenwick, but she had been badly wrong, there, and in a way that hurt too much to think about. And Pusey, but even though he was an idiot, he wasn't actually a bully. He had tried to help her with Fenwick, and he had even conjured her matchstick for her when the Transfiguration teacher, Bulstrode, had been going to give her detention and take fifty points off Gryffindor if she didn't do some magic by the end of the lesson. She'd been angry with Pusey for it, and kind of shocked that Bulstrode hadn't realised it wasn't her work, but he'd meant well and he had said that he just didn't want Gryffindor to lose all those points, which made sense, at least.

"Then what's wrong?"

"I mustn't do magic. I'm a Christian."

Professor McGonagall's eyes narrowed. "So am I," she said, "so are lots of wizards, as I imagine lots of people have pointed out to you."

"It's not right, though," said Amy. "You can't make me do something I don't think's right. You can expel me, but you can't make me do magic."

"Fortunately for you," said McGonagall, "that is true. Though I might remind you that the previous regime would have no compunction in making you do anything they wanted, and the one reason that you are here and not somewhere considerably nastier is because various people did magic in the service of what's right."

"I expect they meant well," said Amy miserably, "but that doesn't prove they were right. I just have to do what the Bible says."

"Amy, the Bible was written in a different place and time; you can't just assume that it's talking about what you think it's talking about."

"It's God's word," said Amy, flatly. "How can you be a Christian if you don't follow God's word?"

"I do try to," McGonagall's voice was terse, and she pinched the skin between her eyes, as if she was getting a headache. "Sometimes it's very, very difficult… But given that neither of us has obtained our magic by striking a deal with the powers of hell, I fail to see the problem with using the gift God gave us."

Amy stared at her, mute and unhappy. McGonagall appeared to reach a decision. "All right," she said. "No-one will take points off you or give you detention for not performing magic. However, you will not be able to get decent marks without it, and you will fail your exams at the end of the year and you will be asked to leave the school if you do, which I need hardly point out could have very serious consequences for your future. I sincerely hope that you will have come to your senses before then."

"Oh. Um. Thank you."

"And I want you to go and talk to Fr David. And bear in mind that asking him if he is a Christian or not is a really, really stupid question."

•••

Gloomily, Amy plodded down to the church the following Sunday afternoon. The noticeboard was odd; on the one hand it looked like a perfectly normal church noticeboard, if not of one she'd have gone to, but the details were weird. _S. Dunstan's, Hogsmeade, Scottish Episcopal Church, Diocese of Iona. Incumbent Fr. David Smethwick SCP, M.Thaum. (Witt.), M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.)_ it read, followed by a list of weekly services, _Baptisms, weddings, funerals, confessions by arrangement (please avoid Mondays except in emergency)_. Below a poster advertised a service of blessing of broomsticks, and the Mothers' Union were having a speaker come to tell them about sewing spells (with prize for best charmed cauldron), while the Men's Group were going to hear about Arithmantic Principles of Change-Ringing. One sign appealed for donations for Christian Aid and another for a group of Anglican nuns teaching basic magic to AIDS orphans in Malawi, while a third informed her that a light burned for the church at the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham. Amy stared at it, no longer quite sure which detail she found most bewildering or repellent, then, giving it up as a bad job, she walked into the porch, and put her hand on the latch.

The church was cool and surprisingly light, given that it was illuminated only by the grey daylight coming in through the south windows and by the candles on a chandelier, which a man in a cassock standing perilously on the top step of a stepladder was engaged in snuffing. There was a strange sweet smell, not unpleasant, but heavy and unfamiliar. The man, who was presumably Fr David Smethwick SCP and whatever the rest of it was, was tall and thin, though not quite tall enough for the job he was doing, and his rather untidy hair was snow white.

Amy stood there awkwardly, not wanting to startle him, but he looked down from what he was doing anyway. "Hullo, you must be Amy," he said, "I'll just snuff these, and then we can go through to the rectory."

"That looked awfully dangerous" she burst out, after he had climbed down. "You should get a longer ladder. Or – why don't you use magic?"

He darted a sidelong look at her, and she saw with a start that though his hair was white, his face was quite young looking. He was a lot younger than her father.

"You're probably right about the ladder," he said "though there always seems to be more important things to worry about. But it's funny _you_ should ask about magic."

"No-one else seems to have a problem using it," she said, oddly reluctant, "other than me, I mean."

He laughed. "Yes, I've heard a bit about that; I expect that's why Professor McGonagall sent you down. I don't have anything against using magic, though, not normally. But I trained at a Muggle college and was a curate in a Muggle parish, and it just feels more natural to carry on as I learned. The Archdeacon thinks it's a bit pretentious, but I can't help feeling that it means more if I do things in the church by hand. Which the Archdeacon says is sentimental, and he's probably right, but there you go."

"You trained with Muggles? So there's no Bible colleges for wizards? So much for all that stuff people keep telling me about the wizarding world being full of Christians."

He shook his head. "No, it's not like _that_. It's just a matter of numbers. It doesn't make any sense for the wizard province to train its own priests, we haven't got enough parishes or enough vocations – well, we haven't got the population – and anyway, the priesthood's the priesthood, whether you're a wizard or a Muggle. We do a couple of extra seminars, because sometimes there are different pastoral issues, but other than that, it's exactly the same. Mind you, there's other ways to do it. The Church of Scotland works like we do, but the RCs either train within the magical orders or send them to the Wizard College in Rome. And I think some of the free church types go to separate colleges in the States. But I think our way's better, though I did feel very out of my depths out there at first."

"You're not – Muggle-born?"

"Nah, I'm what they used to call pureblood, back in the bad old days. I expect I've got some Muggle tucked away somewhere, virtually everybody does, but my family's wizard as far back as anyone's ever traced."

"And what do they think of you being a vicar?"

"I don't think they were much bothered one way or another… well, except for my irritating uncle Eustace who keeps telling me that with O's in Arithmancy and Ancient Runes I should have gone into banking and made my fortune, but I somehow suspect that that's not what you mean. I have good parents who say good parent-like things like 'we'll support you whatever you choose.' I come from a fairly religious family, actually. It's not like no-one in the Wizarding World goes to church. Wizards aren't very devout, as a bunch, but then neither are British Muggles. America's different, of course."

"But it doesn't make sense!" said Amy, almost crossly. "The Bible says you shouldn't let a witch live!'

"Fairly close to where it says that you shouldn't eat prawns or wear mixed fibres, if I remember correctly" said the vicar, dryly. "And are you seriously suggesting that God wants your classmates dead? Or Professor McGonagall? Or me?"

"Well… no."

"Glad to hear it. And not just because of my selfish preference for being alive," he said, with a wry grin.

Amy thought of the story Pusey had told her, but only said, "But I don't think he wants you to do magic."

The vicar sighed, and folded the step ladder up. "I'll put it away, and then we can have some tea. Or would you prefer juice? And I've got some real, honest-to-goodness Muggle chocolate digestives. I got fond of them when I was at theological college."

"That would be lovely," said Amy, disarmed, "Anything. As long as it's not pumpkin juice."

•••

She wasn't sure what to make of Fr David – she wasn't even sure she wanted to call him that, because she remembered someone at church saying that was wrong, because only God was our father. Fr David noticed her hesitating, and said "Please, just call me David. To tell you the truth, I don't much like being called 'Father,' but people will do it. You can't imagine how embarrassing it is coming from someone like Professor McGonagall, when I still half expect her to give me detention for not handing my Transfiguration homework in on time."

On the other hand, thought Amy, it was a bit weird to call a grown up 'David.' And his house was weird. Not just weird in the way that Hogwarts was weird, though there was that as well, thrown into sharp relief by being in an ordinary house, not a castle like Hogwarts. The rectory was lit by lamps, magic lamps that burned as steady as electric light but more warmly, and the kitchen didn't have a fridge – "Cooling charms on the larder," David explained as he fetched milk for his tea –, the kettle worked on magic, and she suspected that the same went for the big dark range, but in many ways it was the things that looked perfectly Muggle that threw her. He had a whole lot of icons, and there was a funny uncomfortable looking little wooden desk with no chair, but a platform to kneel on, and a crucifix hanging over it in the corner of his study. His shelves were jammed with books; some of them looked like wizard books, but most of them seemed to be ordinary Muggle ones. She didn't recognise any of them, other than three battered volumes of _The Lord of the Rings_, which someone at church had said was heathen (though come to think of it, Terry had said that was stupid, and that Tolkien had been a faithful Christian in his way). It was like the church; partly familiar, and partly alien in a way that didn't seem to have too much to do with magic, which made things even more disconcerting. Like David himself, who was unselfconsciously wandering about in a cassock, a sort of tight black sash round his waist. Amy couldn't imagine anyone she knew dressing like that, but the truth was that it didn't look wizard. Odd and old fashioned, yes, but he might as well have been a Muggle. It didn't seem right, somehow, that the closest similarities between the two worlds should lie there, in religion. Only it was such a strange kind.

David wasn't, she suspected, the sort of minister that they approved of at her church. On the other hand, surely someone who had been in prison for his beliefs like that couldn't possibly be bad?

"So, um," she began, "Are all wizards who think - who call themselves Christians like you and Pusey?"

"High church, do you mean?" David looked amused. "No. I suppose High Mass and bells and smells aren't your sort of thing?"

"I'm not even sure what that means," said Amy, honestly. "I like worship songs. And that sort of thing. Services that are fun and cheerful and help you to praise God. Not all really old hymns and silly clothes and prancing about, and… um, sorry."

"That's all a matter of taste, you know – it may be hard to believe, but some of us would rather sing the old hymns. They're a lot meatier, theologically, and the tunes are better for a congregation to sing together, if you ask me. But there are wizarding services that are more like what you'd like. There's a church down in Birmingham that does some quite amazing things with charms – sort of like a Power-point presentation, I suppose, but… well, it's well done, but I always think it's a bit of a gimmick. Still, I suppose they'd say the same thing about incense."

Amy looked at him oddly, "_Incense_? Isn't that what Hindus use?"

"It's an old part of Christian worship, you know. You should come to Mass – Communion, it's the same thing and it doesn't matter what you call it – one Sunday morning."

"I don't think I'd like it much," said Amy, cautiously, trying to be kind. "But thank you, anyway."

"Fair enough," said David. "Although, you know, I don't suppose you've been to church at all since the start of term, and the Bible _does_ say you ought to be faithful in prayer and meeting with other Christians…"

"But… it's… It's not that simple. Is it?"

David gave her a small smile. "You tell me, Amy. Isn't that what this is about? How you make sense of what the Bible says, and how we should live now?"

"You make it sound so complicated," said Amy, feeling vaguely resentful.

"Isn't it?"

"It shouldn't be. The truth ought to be simple."

"Why?" said David, and then added, at her rebellious look, "I mean, if you're going to say 'the truth is that God loves us', then sure, that's simple. So's 'do as you would be done by.' But if you want to get more specific… the world's a big, complex place, and God gave us big, complex brains to make sense of it. Maybe not quite big enough, but then he also gave us revelation and his Spirit. And the traditions of the church, of course, which are how the Spirit has worked in his people."

"But what if they're wrong?"

"Then we try to work out what God is actually calling us to do."

"Do you really think he's calling us to use magic?"

"Yes," said David, simply. "Assuming we use it well. Look at the parable of the talents; God wasn't exactly pleased with the servant who buried the money in the ground because he was scared he'd make a mess of things, was he? God doesn't give us gifts so that we can ignore them."

"But is it a gift? It feels more like a temptation to me. I mean, just because it's part of you doesn't mean it's _good_."

"No, it doesn't… I'm afraid the only way you can know _that_ is to ask what using it does. Does it make you love God more or less? Is it good or bad for the people around you?"

"What if you don't know?"

"Then you pray about it until something happens to show you what God wants, I suppose."

"Pray until something happens," said Amy, thoughtfully. "I've got a bracelet to remind me of that – look, it says P.U.S.H." She thrust out her arm, so that David could see. She almost thought that he pulled a face, but surely she had imagined that.

•••

The rest of the term was fairly uneventful. She argued a lot with Pusey and a bit with Vicky; since McGonagall had told the teachers not to dock her points, the other Gryffindors had decided not to care about her not doing magic. She got detention for not trying to ride a broomstick (shame, really, she thought wistfully, it looked like fun), but that wasn't too bad. Hagrid, the big, wild man took her into the Forbidden Forest to count unicorn foals, and gave her some really awful cakes.

The unicorns were beautiful, the most amazing thing she had ever seen, and there was no way, she thought, that they could be evil. Surely God must love them? After all, they were animals. Animals couldn't sin.

Pray until something happens… only nothing much did. The castle was decorated for Christmas, great enormous pine trees covered with glimmering fairies, and it actually snowed. It wasn't fair, thought Amy, that the magical world was so much prettier…. then she thought about the dark stories Pusey had told her about the previous year, and thought of David, with his young face and snow-white hair, and wondered who had really got the better deal. Bits of the castle were scarred from the battle between the Order of the Phoenix and the Death Eaters.

The end of term came, and Amy went home. It was a perfectly uneventful Christmas; she ran into Terry in the shopping centre, and was very embarrassed, because she couldn't think of what to tell him about her term. Somehow she hadn't thought about what it would be like to come back from Hogwarts and _be_ back; she felt horribly out of place. But she didn't belong at Hogwarts either; she couldn't, since she'd promised God she wouldn't do magic.

What if she'd been wrong? But a promise was a promise.

Just before New Year her parents took her to visit her Gran, who lived in the Yorkshire Dales. It was a terrible drive – it had come on to snow unexpectedly, and Amy's dad thought they should turn back, and the hillside dropped sharply away from the road on one side. But it seemed stupid to turn back when they were so close, and Gran would be worrying, and the road back would probably be worse, said her mother. And the snow wasn't really that bad, it was getting brighter – and at that moment, the car slewed in a skid, and Amy heard her parents scream. It was the most frightening thing she'd ever heard.

The car was hanging over the edge; it seemed to be suspended, as if time had stopped, though that couldn't be. Amy thought, "We're all going to die" and "Oh Jesus _help_!"

And then – it was almost as if she heard a voice inside her, a voice that somehow sounded a bit like Professor McGonagall, and a bit like David, and a bit like Hermione Granger, and, strangely, a bit like Terry, and the voice seemed to say, "You can save them. You'll be safe whatever happens, but you can save them too. But only if you choose."

Magic, she thought, and then, but it's wrong, and then, but I haven't got a wand.  
"You can save them," the voice that wasn't a voice said without words. "But you must choose – now."

It's wrong, she thought, it's rejecting God – and yet she couldn't, she just couldn't let them all die. A sob tore from her throat: and suddenly there was a flash of light, and she knew no more.

•••

She came round in a bed that wasn't her own; the light was bright and hurt her eyes. A figure bent over her. "There you are, dear, it's all right. Drink this."

"Mum?" she whispered, "Dad?"

"They're all alright, dear. You were the only person who was hurt, and you're going to be fine soon too; they'll be able to come and visit you before too long. You've been very brave and strong. Now, drink this…"

Obediently, Amy did; so her parents were all right, thank God… except she didn't have any right to say that now, because she'd saved them by doing magic. She'd rejected God… and she couldn't, somehow, quite manage to be sorry. Or she was sorry, but she knew she'd do the same again, so it wasn't really repenting.

I'm probably damned, she thought. But at least the others were OK. Perhaps it wasn't her that had done it, perhaps it really was a miracle (but she knew deep down that it wasn't). Oh, it was all far too difficult…

She slept again.

•••

"Hullo Amy, the nurse says you can have visitors that aren't family, now." It was David, who was standing in the door, carrying a bunch of flowers and a box of chocolates, which Amy thought looked mildly incongruous in combination with a cassock. "May I come in?"

Amy smiled, then blinked unhappily as the misery of the mess she was in rushed back over her. "Yeah – sure."

"Well, tell me the moment you start to feel too tired, and I'll go" he said, and put the flowers and the box down on the bedside table. "The nurses say you may have _one_ chocolate with your tea. They're Cadbury's, I thought you'd like something Muggle better than Honeydukes when you're feeling poorly. And I brought you something to read - _The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe._ I expect you've read it umpteen times before, but I know I like rereading good books when I'm ill."

"Only once, a long time ago. And – well, I didn't like books with magic. They made me feel scared…"

"Oh? I thought it was compulsory for Evangelicals to like Lewis… Well, give it another go. Maybe it won't be scary now you know something about magic. And talking of which, I hope you're prepared to be a heroine when you get back to school. Saving your family with wandless magic isn't bad for someone who's only been at Hogwarts for a term, especially when they were doing their level best not to learn. Though I must say, filling in the valley was possibly going a bit far, but it's all very Biblical and the Ministry has decided it was still reasonable use of magic, and that the Muggles probably won't notice. Which is typical of those out-of-touch idiots, because it's been on Radio 4 and in the papers, but I won't tell the Ministry if you don't."

"Filling in the valley?" said Amy in a small voice. "And definitely magic? I was hoping – I thought maybe it was a miracle."

David snorted, and he suddenly looked, despite his hair, very young. "My dear girl, miracles are very rarely so far over the top. God doesn't do party tricks. But," and he looked at her sharply, "Why hoping? You're not _sorry_ for what you did, are you?"

"I-" He was the first person who had had any idea that she might feel anything other than pleased and proud of her own heroics, and it was too much. She dissolved, silently, into tears. David passed her a handkerchief. After a bit she said "No. No, I'm not. Only I feel I ought to, since I've done the one thing I've promised God I wouldn't do, and I've broken his word, and… I'm probably going to Hell and I hate what I did – but I'd do it again."

"Good girl," said David. "Good girl." She looked at him in incomprehension, and he continued "Have you read _Huck Finn_?"

Puzzled, she shook her head.

"I'll lend you it some time, it's a good book. Anyway, it's a story by a guy called Mark Twain, set in the American South – when they still had slaves there, before the Civil War – and it's about a boy who runs away from home to live on the river. He meets a man he knows is a runaway slave. Now, Huck's been taught that slavery is God's will, and he believes that God will be angry with him if he helps him escape. But when he's put in a situation where he could give Jim – that's the slave – away, he can't bring himself to do so, and he says, well, I'll just have to go to Hell, because I can't betray him. Now, Twain was an atheist, but I'd say that in that moment, if Huck'd been real, he'd have been close to the heart of God, because although he thought he was rejecting Him, he was doing so because of love, and justice, and because of his conscience. And when you get down to it, God is love – and conscience is the voice of God inside us, though I admit it can be very easy to mishear it."

"But slavery's evil."

"Yes, it is. But the Old Testament doesn't think so" said David. "Oh, I know, they weren't talking about exactly the same thing, and the Bible is always concerned about protecting the weak against the strong – but that's the point. The church came to recognise that slavery is inherently evil, and also that magic isn't. Magic – our magic – isn't what the Bible condemns. You can do evil with magic, but that's wrong because it's cruel or proud or greedy, not for any other reason… What happened in the car?"

She paused, struggling for words. "We slid off the road – and we seemed to be hanging there – and I prayed – and then I thought I heard something like a voice, and it told me I could save them, if I wanted to. And – I didn't want to do magic, but I knew I couldn't let them die. And then I'm not sure what happened. There was a lot of light."

"Mm. So – you prayed, and you seemed to hear a voice which told you could save them, and then you did… Well, that may not be a miracle in the technical sense, but – why on earth are you still worried about God being angry with you for doing magic?"

"You don't think God was _telling_ me to do magic?"

"Well, while it's safe enough to see the hand of God in any event, it's usually a bit dodgy trying to work out what he's doing – but in this case I'd say yes, definitely" said David, and the sun streaming in through the windows of the ward caught his white hair, making it gleam. "But you know what I think. You've been given a gift in magic – a talent, if you like, in the Biblical sense – but the thing about gifts that God gives is that He expects you to use them, not to say 'No thanks, I don't like the colour.' Use them for others, if nothing else. You used your gift to save your parents, and if anyone tells you that God didn't want you to do so, they want their heads examined. But I should stop preaching at you, or your temperature will go up and the Healers will use my head as a Christmas decoration, and I don't think that would help anyone."

"Well, no," said Amy, rather lamely. They talked for half an hour or so, mostly about football. As David got up to go, she said "I think… I think I ought to give magic a chance."

"Good. Will I be seeing you some Sunday come the new term?"

"Yeah, I guess. I still don't like old-fashioned services, though."

He laughed. "Fair enough. It's not one of the fundamentals of the faith."

After he'd gone, Amy started to read _The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe_, and was somewhat embarrassed to realise that she'd completely missed what it was about the last time she had read it.

Around teatime, the nurse brought in a get-well card from Pusey. It read "Dear Heretic, I hope you get well soon and are OK by next term. History of Magic will be ~~even more~~ boring without you. If you like, I'll teach you the bat-bogey curse. With best wishes, Sabine Pusey."

_Sabine_, thought Amy incredulously, but she didn't just smile because of that. Maybe next term would be all right after all.

It's a shame I can't tell Terry he was right, she thought drowsily, and fell asleep.


End file.
